


the raise of the conductor's baton

by makeshiftrolley



Series: skies of heleus [2]
Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Flashbacks, Gen, Past Lives, Post-Canon, Remnant Vaults, The Jardaan, Visions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-07 04:48:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17359259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makeshiftrolley/pseuds/makeshiftrolley
Summary: It was supposed to be a simple expedition. They find something they shouldn't have.





	1. a zealous god threads these strings

**Author's Note:**

> My collab partner for this REBB is seokanori (masterpost of the art over [here](http://seokanori.tumblr.com/post/182191213741/mass-effect-reverse-big-bang-2018-2019-3-stories)!). Thank you so much for working with me! It's been a pleasure. Upon seeing the image, I immediately knew I had to write with some ideas I've been toying around for almost two years now. 
> 
> And as always, thank you so much to azzydarling for hosting!

Avela is a researcher—a scientist by trade. No manual or teacher has trained her in the art of combat. Her mandatory servitude in the Resistance only provided the basics: holding a gun, firing said gun and hiding from kett. Nothing she needs when hiding from a killer inside the intricate passages of a Vault. She exhales, covering her lips. The quieter she is the better.

An orange light glows on her arm—her Omni tool. Skkut.

“Avela?” A voice, muffled by her arm comes from the Omni tool. Pollux Peysik, a turian she dragged into this mess. He’s trapped in this maze, somewhere far from her.

“Pol! Is that you?” Avela whispers, closing her lips on the Omni tool.

“You’re alive! Spirits, where—” Pol coughs. She hears him spit something liquid on the ground. Avela hopes it’s not blood. “Avela, where are you?”

She scans her surroundings.

“I’m in a room, somewhere. Not sure where but it shouldn’t be far from the beacon.”

“Good, stay there. I’ll come find—” He groans in pain. “I’ll come find you. Just wait.”

“Pol, is everything alright?” Avela stutters. Her arm won’t stop shaking. She holds it, keeping it steady.

Deafening silence fills the other end. With each second Pol doesn’t speak, her heart pounds louder against her chest. In a minute, maybe the killer will hear her, and it’s the end for Avela and her research—and the truth the angara needs.

She clutches the gun strapped on her belt and just as she is about to leave and look for Pol, she hears him on the other end.

“I’m fine. Sorry, had to take care of something,” he says, voice hoarse and ragged.

She’s not convinced it’s the truth. “Pol, tell me where you are. I’ll go there.”

“No, don’t,” he insists, “Spirits Avela, I’m fine. Just stay where you are.”

“You don’t sound like you’re fine. Give me your coordinates,” she demands.

Standing up from the floor, she peeks at the doorway. The Remnant machines are silent and still like statues at Aya’s Repository. If not for the menacing red glow serving as their eyes, Avela can take them for study.

Red. She sees a glimmer of red cloth float outside the windows across the hallway. It disappears. At the doorway connecting the two halls, their attacker walks in. His hood masks all of his features. All she sees is a void, dark and empty, accentuated by the deep red of his clothes. Like he truly is an evil spirit coming for their life.

Goosebumps prickle the back of her neck. He walks, moving without his feet ever touching the ground. Inside her mind, Avela recites a prayer of protection. If their Spirits can reach inside the hollowness of a Vault.

“Avela, are you there? Please, say something,” Pol says.

“Pol,” Avela whispers, leaning close to her Omni tool “He’s outside.”

She pokes her head out. He’s there as still as the machines lining up the hallway. His red cloak billows behind him on the Vault’s recycled air. A cold chill runs down her spine. He’s staring at her.

Avela hides behind a wall. “I think he saw me.”

“Avela, you have to hide. Stay where you are and I’ll come find you.”

Pol cuts off transmission. The line on the other side is dead. She is alone, inside a room with a killer waiting at the hallway outside. Clutching her ancestor’s heirloom—a necklace with a wooden charm, inlaid with blue markings, she hides in the alcove.

Avela is not a soldier. She is a scientist by trade. She’s never meant for war, only to find truths her people desperately crave. In her solitude, she thinks of her dreams; of the moments leading her here.

“Remember the Key in the heart of the daar,” she mutters, repeating the phrase as a chant. If only her heart was a strong as the woman in her dreams.

 

Electricity pulses from her mother's hand, enclosing them in a faint blue shield as bullets zip through the air. She clutches her mother's rofjinn as tight as her little fingers can. Don't let go, she repeats her mother's words in her mind. Don't ever let go of me, ongaan.

The world is ending. Clouds as dark as the empty spaces between the stars cover the skies. They destroy everything in their path, and turn the machines against them.

Their home is the last refuge in the jarevaon but the machines have pushed them further in. A cloaked man, neither Angara nor anyone from the Imasaf, leads them through the machines’ lair.

Mother sets her down on the ground. They stand before a gate, shaped like a triangle. Inside, their galaxy's stars greet them, offering solitude during chaos.

The cloaked man whispers an incantation in a language close to Shelesh but not quite. He raises his hands and the ground trembles.

“Mama!” She hugs her mother's waist tight. Mother pats her head, pulling her close but her expression doesn’t change. Suddenly, a stone wall shoots out from the ground, blocking the entrance.

The cloaked man lowers his hands. “That should keep them away.”

Bang. Bang. Bang. Black wisps seep through small cracks forming on the wall’s facade. From the other side, metal collides with stone and the chirp of the machines grows louder. Mother pulls her back.

“We don’t have much time,” she says.

The cloaked man nods. He walks towards the gate. Pressing his palm at the entrance, he mutters another incantation. All the energy inside the gate swirl around his palm, as though he is the Haranj and they are the planets lured into his orbit.

He lifts his hand from the gate, carrying its energy on his fingertips. Inside, the image shifts to golden towers spreading across the horizon.

“The gate is ready,” the cloaked man says, beckoning them.

Mother carries her and walks towards the gate. She presses her palm as the cloaked man did, sending ripples like she has touched water. She turns to the cloaked man.

“What about you?”

His red eyes gazes at Mother’s crystal blue ones. She hasn’t noticed his eyes were a deep red.

“I’ll stay and deal with the machines.”

“No, you can’t,” Mother says, “you’re the last of the Order, the protector of our histories, and the stream lives with you.”

“I promised to protect you,” he says, lips trembling after each syllable. He closes his eyes, and breathes before continuing. “When my people--we thought the Angara were lesser beings, I made that promise to you and your children, and your children's children.”

“You are the guardian of our histories, our culture,” Mother says through gritted teeth. “They’ll need you after the disaster.”

He cups Mother's cheek. “I made you my apprentice. You have the knowledge, perhaps more than some in the Order.”

“I'm not ready,” she breathes. “I'm not ready.”

Bang. Bang. Crack. The wall explodes; the machines crawl through. Mother creates a barrier, shielding them from stone, dust and bullets.

“You have to go,” Mother says. Her muscles strain under the machine's heavy fire.

“Osha--”

“Go!” Mother insists. “And take my daughter with you.”

His red eyes squint as though he has another protest, another argument against keeping her here. Instead, he nods and takes her from Mother's arms.

“Before I go, Osha.” He holds the necklace on his palm. Tracing the indents of the wooden charm, he presses the energy swirling around his hand. The indents light up a beautiful blue--as blue as her mother's eyes.

“Press this on the interface when put my hand on the gate,” he says, “it will take us there.”

Mother squeezes his hand. Kneeling down to her height, Mother kisses her brow. “Isharay, ongaan, remember the Key in the heart of the daar.”

“Mama!” She cries, struggling against his iron grip. The man drags her to the gate, pressing his hand on the innermost triangle.

“Mama!” She cries and cries until her voice is hoarse; until a pillar of light envelopes them; until they stand before golden towers--their solitude during chaos.

 

Kadara's mornings are different from Aya's. Gone are the fresh morning dew on crisp leaves. Instead, Govorkam welcomes the day with hot and humid temperatures, flaking her skin and clinging her palms with a film of sweat. Avela rolls around and grabs her dream journal from the side table.

She notes down her dream in her journal. Little has changed from every night before. She always plays a daughter at the end of the world, running away from machines—Remnant with her mother and a cloaked man bearing immense power. And it always ends when they pass through the gate, a contraption Avela has never encountered in her studies.

She sketches it at a bottom corner of the page. Two triangles, one inside of the other. The gate can transport them to any location. And there are angara out in the galaxy, who preserved their culture from before the Scourge.

“Remember the Key in the heart of the daar.” She writes. Osha, the mother hasn’t said that in any of her previous dreams.

And the cloaked man? Who is he? He shares similar features with the angara—his eyes, lips, nose and fused fingers but the rest of his physical characteristics, Avela has never seen before. Perhaps, the tentacles growing from his head are similar with an asari’s. And his abilities, no Angara has achieve such feats. Perhaps, he is one of their creators?

But they’re all theories from a dream. No reputable scientist would believe her.

A loud knock taps rapidly on her door. A voice calls from outside. “Avela, you’re going to be late!”

She puts away her journal and changes into her rofjinn.

Ahje Eva Vina stands at her door with her hands on her hips, the lines on her brow deep. She purses her lips. “You're late.”

“I'm aware,” Avela says sheepishly. “It's good to see you, Ahje.”

Avela opens her arms for a hug. She hasn't seen Ahje in awhile, not since they left the retriever team in Harval. They were friends, sisters as if they had the same mother. They promised to keep in touch. However, after Avela landed a coveted apprenticeship at Aya's Repository, and Ahje returned to Kadara, her homeland to care for her family, their messages were far and few in between.

Ahje's expression softens. A warm smile appears on her lips. She returns Avela's embrace. “I miss you too, my friend. But you'll be very late if we don't go now.”

Ahje pulls back but still holds Avela in her arms. She frowns, “and Efvra will give me an earful if you don't get to this expedition in time. You know he had to pull a lot of strings to get you out of Aya's Repository.”

“It's the least he could do for the work I've done restoring our history,” Avela says, beaming with pride. In her time as a curator, she has done more than her predecessors. Pathfinder Ryder may have retrieved the artifacts but Avela determined their place in Angaran history.

“I didn't know he cared. He's always so sour,” Ahje says.

“You know he has to be, for the Resistance. You may not see it but Efvra cares a lot.”

“Not about us.”

Ahje leads them out of Ditaeon's dormitories and into fresh air. The gossip about Kadara is all wrong--she is a beauty. Her jagged peaks soften under her satellite's morning light. Pools once rotten, now sparkle as though they are made of jewelry. And green hills as far as Avela's eyes can see. No other planet in the jarevaon boasts as much beauty as Kadara.

And Avela now understands why Ahje speaks so fondly of Kadara. This is her home, and her ancestors’ home long before the Initiative and long before the Kett.

Ahje stops in front of a building across from the doormatories. She keys in the code to the lock. They enter.

“You will be debriefed by Initiative personnel,” Ahje says, “since you're late, you will have to use the Initiative's pack for this expedition.”

Ahje tosses a cobalt sack at her. The Initiative’s logo is stamped with big and bold letters on the canvas. “It should have the essentials for the vesagara.”

“You shouldn't call the Initiative that. They did save us,” Avela points out.

“Vesagara, Initiative, they're all the same. I'll call them what I want,” Ahje scoffs, twirling her hand in the hair. “I've swapped the vesagara's medicine with our medicine. That should be the only difference. You should still find similar tools. And, hold on--”

Ahje digs inside her rofjinn. She procures a container wrapped in cloth and slips it inside Avela’s knapsack. “Nutrient paste. The vesagara had these protein bars and they smelled awful.”

“Ahje, you didn't have to do any of this.” Avela averts her gaze. “But thank you.”

“It’s no problem. I'm the eldest of 24 siblings and I always come prepared.”

Ahje claps her back. She pushes Avela towards the hallway. “Now be off. Or else they'll cancel the expedition and I'll have to hear from Efvra. And Efvra will be cross with you.”

“You're not coming?”

Ahje turns her gaze. She says, cold and cruel, “I don't work for the vesagara.”

\--

“Have you worked with these before?” Christmas Tate gestures at the Omni tools on the table.

Kadara's mornings are different from Aya's. Gone are the fresh morning dew on crisp leaves. Instead, Govorkam welcomes the day with hot and humid temperatures, flaking her skin and clinging her palms with a film of sweat. Avela rolls around and grabs her dream journal from the side table.

She notes down her dream in her journal. Little has changed from every night before. She always plays a daughter at the end of the world, running away from machines—Remnant with her mother and a cloaked man bearing immense power. And it always ends when they pass through the gate, a contraption Avela has never encountered in her studies.

She sketches it at a bottom corner of the page. Two triangles, one inside of the other. The gate can transport them to any location. And there are angara out in the galaxy, who preserved their culture from before the Scourge.

“Remember the Key in the heart of the daar.” She writes. Osha, the mother hasn’t said that in any of her previous dreams.

And the cloaked man? Who is he? He shares similar features with the angara—his eyes, lips, nose and fused fingers but the rest of his physical characteristics, Avela has never seen before. Perhaps, the tentacles growing from his head are similar with an asari’s. And his abilities, no Angara has achieve such feats. Perhaps, he is one of their creators?

But they’re all theories from a dream. No reputable scientist would believe her.

A loud knock taps rapidly on her door. A voice calls from outside. “Avela, you’re going to be late!”

She puts away her journal and changes into her rofjinn.

Ahje Eva Vina stands at her door with her hands on her hips, the lines on her brow deep. She purses her lips. “You're late.”

“I'm aware,” Avela says sheepishly. “It's good to see you, Ahje.”

Avela opens her arms for a hug. She hasn't seen Ahje in awhile, not since they left the retriever team in Harval. They were friends, sisters as if they had the same mother. They promised to keep in touch. However, after Avela landed a coveted apprenticeship at Aya's Repository, and Ahje returned to Kadara, her homeland to care for her family, their messages were far and few in between.

Ahje's expression softens. A warm smile appears on her lips. She returns Avela's embrace. “I miss you too, my friend. But you'll be very late if we don't go now.”

Ahje pulls back but still holds Avela in her arms. She frowns, “and Evfra will give me an earful if you don't get to this expedition in time. You know he had to pull a lot of strings to get you out of Aya's Repository.”

“It's the least he could do for the work I've done restoring our history,” Avela says, beaming with pride. In her time as a curator, she has done more than her predecessors. Pathfinder Ryder may have retrieved the artifacts but Avela determined their place in Angaran history.

“I didn't know he cared. He's always so sour,” Ahje says.

“You know he has to be, for the Resistance. You may not see it but Evfra cares a lot.”

“Not about us.”

Ahje leads them out of Ditaeon's dormitories and into fresh air. The gossip about Kadara is all wrong--she is a beauty. Her jagged peaks soften under her satellite's morning light. Pools once rotten, now sparkle as though they are made of jewelry. And green hills as far as Avela's eyes can see. No other planet in the jarevaon boasts as much beauty as Kadara.

And Avela now understands why Ahje speaks so fondly of Kadara. This is her home, and her ancestors’ home long before the Initiative and long before the Kett.

Ahje stops in front of a building across from the doormatories. She keys in the code to the lock. They enter.

“You will be debriefed by Initiative personnel,” Ahje says, “since you're late, you will have to use the Initiative's pack for this expedition.”

Ahje tosses a cobalt sack at her. The Initiative’s logo is stamped with big and bold letters on the canvas. “It should have the essentials for the vesagara.”

“You shouldn't call the Initiative that. They did save us,” Avela points out.

“Vesagara, Initiative, they're all the same. I'll call them what I want,” Ahje scoffs, twirling her hand in the hair. “I've swapped the vesagara's medicine with our medicine. That should be the only difference. You should still find similar tools. And, hold on--”

Ahje digs inside her rofjinn. She procures a container wrapped in cloth and slips it inside Avela’s knapsack. “Nutrient paste. The vesagara had these protein bars and they smelled awful.”

“Ahje, you didn't have to do any of this.” Avela averts her gaze. “But thank you.”

“It’s no problem. I'm the eldest of 24 siblings and I always come prepared.”

Ahje claps her back. She pushes Avela towards the hallway. “Now be off. Or else they'll cancel the expedition and I'll have to hear from Evfra. And Evfra will be cross with you.”

“You're not coming?”

Ahje turns her gaze. She says, cold and cruel, “I don't work for the vesagara.”

\--

“Have you worked with these before?” Christmas Tate gestures at the Omni tools on the table.

“Yes,” Avela says simply. She has tinkered with one: a faulty Omni tool provided by Ryder's asari companion in exchange for Remnant information. The tool is powerful. No technology made by the Angara compares to it.

Maybe they did, before the Scourge.

“Good to know,” he says, “some angara have never even seen one. And they want a job at my company.”

“I am the curator of Aya's Repository. It's my job to know artifacts from this galaxy and yours.”

“Just saying. It's good you know,” Tate shrugs. He picks up an Omni tool from the table. “Do you have one of these though?”

Avela shakes her head.

“Give me your arm,” Tate says, fastening the Omni tool on Avela's wrist. “Now, we're going to pretend Director Tann doesn't record this but she--” he taps on the Omni tool “--is a new one. Made by the folks over at the Collective. You can use it to track an object's location by matching the material. It's still a prototype but my workers were able to find mineral deposits with it.”

“Is that everything?”

“Wait, shit, I forgot.” Tate calls with his Omni tool. “Pollux Peysik, get over here, Room 2438 at the NW compound.”

A turian rushes inside. Despite his neat armour, and clean rifle, glinting like jewels, he looks disheveled. Peysik catches his breath. Upon seeing Mayor Tate, he bows his head.

“Sir, I apologize I was late, sir,” he barks as if judged by a general. Avela has heard how strict turian military must be. Then again, she cannot complain when the Resistance is their supreme leader.

“Get up. How many times do I have to tell you, I ain't military.” Tate says.

Peysik straightens up. “But you're the leader of this facility, you deserve respect, yes?”

“I mine fertilizer for a living.”

Peysik's mandibles are stretched tight to his face. He fidgets with the strap of his pack, looking at everywhere and anyone but Christmas Tate.

“Anyway, I still got shit to do so we should get a move on,” Tate says. “Avela Kjar meet Pollux Peysik. He will accompany you on this expedition.”

Companion? Evfra never said anything about an Initiative bodyguard accompanying her.

“Mayor Tate, while I appreciate the partnership between our cultures, this expedition is strictly for the Resistance. Evfra--”

“Evfra gave the order,” Tate says.

“If Evfra thinks I need a bodyguard, then I can assure you I can fight,” Avela argues. It's a lie, she hasn't held a pistol in combat since her days as a retriever. Even then, she hasn't battled the Remnant machines.

But for the history of her people, she'll do anything.

“His orders, not mine nor Nexus” Tate shrugs, “if you have a problem, take it up with him.” Narrowing his eyes, he says, “Can we get it on now? This outpost isn't gonna mayor itself.”

Peysik flashes a smile at her. She ignores it.

“The Initiative has a novel length manual on how to traverse Remnant sites, and a instruction vid. I'm sure none of us want to go through that horseshit,” Tate says.

“So I only have one guide for you,” he points a finger at them. “Don't die. Pretty straightforward. I'm sure you won't have any questions.”

Peysik raises his hand.

“Okay Pollux, what part of 'don't die’ do you not get?”

“I've never been to a Remnant site,” Peysik replies, still fidgeting with this pack. He looks at Avela and then at Tate, “what is it like?”

“Do I look like I've been to a Remnant site?” Tate deadpans.

“They're beautiful but deadly,” Avela comments, “the Remnant machines will attack if they are disturbed so we often stay away from them.”

Peysik's mandibles quiver. “Good to know.”

“Now, be off, start your expedition or whatever.” Tate brings them to the door. “Unless you want to ask me how to breathe air.”

The door shuts behind them. Avela and Peysik are alone. They stay silent as the shuttle for departure. Having a silent companion isn’t bad, having a silent companion is perfect. Peysik will follow her a long—as quiet as a sleeping adhi. He’ll let her do her job, no questions asked, protecting her from Remnant and Kadara’s other dangerous creatures. And she’ll get her artifact. Perfect.

Peysik sits on the pilot’s chair, turning the ignition on.

“What are the coordinates?” Peysik asks, breaking the thick silence Avela grows accustomed to.

“Oh sorry, I’ll send them to you.” Right, she forgot.

Avela opens her Omni tool. The coordinates should be in an email she sent to Ahje. The interface is a mess; buttons and programs clutter the screen, if there even is a screen. She groans. With each button she presses, a new program opens.

“I can help you with that, that is if you want me to,” Peysik says, rubbing his talons. “I think the—ah person who used this Omni before you didn’t do a full reset.”

“Can you fix it?”

Peysik takes her Omni tool. He presses and holds a key, releasing it when the interface turns black. Avela freezes. Has he broken it?

“It’s resetting,” he assures her. She relaxes.

The Omni tool blinks open. The interface is clean as though brand new. Peysik slides it back on her wrist.

“Now, the coordinates please? Before Mayor Tate personally kicks us out of Ditaeon.”

Avela snickers. Maybe, having a companion isn’t the worst thing in the jareveon.

She finds the coordinates deep in her messages with Ahje, and sends them to Peysik. They fly out into Kadara’s morning sky, zipping past the clouds. Ditaeon shrinks from the view until it’s nothing but a small dot in the sky.

“I know having a bodyguard follow you around wasn’t part of the plan,” Peysik says.

He is correct. Even as they fly through the skies, Avela is frustrated at her predicament.

“Especially not a turian Initiative bodyguard.”

She says nothing.

“But know this,” Peysik gazes deep into her eyes, his tone stern and nothing she has heard in their previous exchange. “The artifact and whatever history you find, it’s all yours. I won’t claim it, even if the Initiative forces me to.”

Avela is speechless. Any assumptions she has about her turian companion fizzles away. Peysik isn’t Angara or experienced in traversing Remnant sites but she can trust him.

“Thank you, Pollux,” Avela says. It’s genuine.

“Please, call me Pol. Only my parents and my—ah siblings called me that. And Mayor Tate but Mayor Tate is different.” He grins.

“Then, call me Avela.”

“Alright, Avela.”


	2. a symphony impossible to play

The coordinates lead them past Kurinth’s Valley and into a former Architect site. The Remnant residing in the area has flown past the skies and into the stars, dancing with grace above the atmosphere. Avela has seen the creature and all her beauty when she flew into Kadara.

They land beside a pool. Avela jumps out. She crouches on the ground, feeling the soil beneath her palms. If she closes her eyes and concentrates, she feels a pulse—a heartbeat calling from across time.

“What exactly are you looking for?” Pol asks. He stands beside her, clutching his rifle close to his chest.

“A weapon, specifically an heirloom,” she replies.

Avela presses her palm deeper, caking her fingers with soil. The pulse is louder, pounding her head like a hammer. It’s here, at this site and it calls to her. Blurred images flash before her sight; fragmented pieces of a memory she knows but cannot remember.

And she sees her—a ghost. She buries a blade at the foot of the mountain and runs, disappearing inside the mountain. And it stops.

And Avela stands before the foot of the mountain. This is where her ancestor buried the blade.

“Avela, are you alright?” Pol asks.

“Avela.” Pol crouches beside her. “You’re bleeding.”

Avela wipes her nose. Blood coats her fused fingers, skkut.

“If you're not feeling well, we can cancel the expedition and--”

“No,” Avela says. She wipes off the blood with her rofjinn. “I'm fine. We can continue. I already know where the artifact is.”

“Oh? How? Where?”

“I saw a vision of my ancestor, burying the blade right here.” Avela places her palm on the soil.

“A vision.” Pol enunciates each syllable slowly.

“It’s how my ancestor speaks through me. We Angara believe in reincarnation and I've been having more of these visions recently. I think my ancestor is trying to tell me something."

Pol takes out a small spade stored inside his Omni tool. They dig until the spade strikes something metal. Avela takes the artifact out--a blade caked with soil and rust. She cleans some of the dirt and discovers the hilt is missing. Regardless, she has her ancestors’ heirloom. She'll postulate about the missing hilt when she gets back to the Repository.

“Is that it? That’s the artifact?”

Avela runs her fingers over the blade. Blue sparks emerge from her skin and strikes the metal. The blade glows; the metal burns as hot as the nearest star. Tossing away the blade, she yelps. Avela reaches inside her pack for her medicine kit but when she looks at her hands—no burns or wounds. Her hands are clean.

On the ground, the artifact is no longer covered in dirt and rust. The blade looks brand new. Symbols are etched on the metal, similar to the runes found across Remnants sites. But these are more elegant--more sophisticated.

And she feels it. The pulse. It calls to her: _Avela, Avela._

 _Osha_.

Osha.

  


“Osha.”

Mother’s hands are caked with dirt. She has buried a blade beneath the spot they stand. It’s her only material possession in this world—a broken blade missing its hilt. Mother killed guards with it during their escape and now, she gives it up for a new life in a new city.

The cloaked man accompanying them steps forward. He reaches forward, opening his fingers as wide as he can. Lines form on the facade of the mountain, shaping into a triangle. The ground shakes as the door slides open. Inside, they catch a glimpse of their new home, beautiful but deadly like the machines.

“Follow me,” he says. Mother clutches her hand tighter. Together they walk into the abyss and abandon the life they know.

The door groans shut. The cloaked man takes off his hood.

He is one of them, one of Jardaan.

 

Avela snaps out of her trance. 

"Avela, Avela!" Pol shakes her. He mutters, "Pollux, you've done it again. You joined some adventure and you think you've got what it takes to be an explorer. But no, no you don't! If not for you, then Kastor would be still alive and Amora won't hate you."

"Pol," Avela she says softly. "I'm here."

"Avela? Spirits, you froze and, and--" He points the mountain where a door to a Vault is carved on the mountain's facade. "You stood there and waved your hands around and that--whatever that is, appears."

She looks at her hands. "I did that?"

"You _did_."

Avela approaches the Vault. The door opens and it's exactly as the Vault in her vision. 

"I saw this in a vision," she says. "A mother and her daughter, escaping something. They wanted a new life here, I think."

"Your ancestor?"

"Yes."

Once inside, the door shuts behind them. Avela and Pol walk into the abyss, following the footsteps of her ancestor.

 

The Vault is a city, larger than Aya and perhaps all of their settlements combined. They can spend years exploring this Vault and they'll only scratch the surface. The blade pulses harder as they move further in. Avela wonders what secrets the Vault hides and if she’ll find the answers she seeks.

The path ends.

They find themselves looking at a wonder. Suspended between the ground and the ceiling is a beam of light. It crackles and hums and buzzes, performing a mechanical symphony. Rows of bent pillars serve as its only audience, along with the silent machines. No living creature has heard its song, until Avela and Pol arrived.

“Whoa, is that—is that—” Pol says, breathless. She realizes it’s the first time he’s ever seen the inside Vault.

“Yes, yes it is,” she answers. Clutching her blade tightly, Avela walks towards the beam. Her eyes are transfixed at the beauty. This is an artifact of their past, and their future.

The blade ceases pulsing. Her heart races, did she do something wrong? She examines the blade; no blemishes or dents. The blade hasn’t changed since they found it.

Suddenly, a force pulls the blade forward.

Avela pulls it back. She curls her hand around the broken hilt as hard as she can. She hisses. Blood drips down her hand but she doesn’t let go. This is her heirloom, her history.

Pol wraps his arms around her waist and pulls. Their combined weight doesn’t stop the blade from slipping out of her grasp. They tumble on the ground. The blade zips as fast as a bullet, colliding against an invisible object.

They get up. An interface materializes between the blade and the beam—the invisible object the artifact struck.

“You saw that, right?” Avela says. They rush towards the interface. Nothing about it is out of the ordinary—just another interface used to communicate with the Remnant. She has seen dozens of them during her days as a retriever.

Unless, she’s like Pol who hasn’t seen an interface in his entire life.

“Yes ah—do Remnant sites usually do this?” Pol asks, his pitch growing higher.

“I’ve never seen it done before.” Truthfully, Avela has never seen a Remnant Vault as intricate as this one.

His mandibles twitch rapidly. “Is this how you opened the Vault?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe, I did connect with an invisible interface,” Avela ponders. “I wonder though.”

She places her palm over the interface. Avela closes her eyes and exhales. Concentrating on her ancestor and the heirloom, she pushes.

Nothing. The hexagon plates stay still.

Avela picks up the blade. Squeezing it close to her chest, she tries again. Nothing.

“Avela, I think I found something,” Pol calls from behind a pillar.  

She finds him holding and amulet—its charm covered with dirt. Pol scans it with his Omni tool but before, he gets a clear reading of the artifact, Avela snatches it from his talons.

“Hey!” He snaps, mandibles flapping like a fan. “I was looking at that!”

Avela ignores his protests. Flakes of soil fall from the charm as she rubs it clean. The engravings are familiar as if she has seen them before in a dream.

The amulet. Osha—Mother. And the gate, oh where is the gate. Find the Key in the heart of the daar.

The Key.

“Pol, I figured it out!” She exclaims.

Pol crosses his arms over his chest. “What?”

“Pol, I apologize for taking the amulet from you, and  you can scan it as much as you want once we get out of here,” Avela concedes, “but I found the Key!”

“That’s great!” Pol’s eyes light up. “What is it a key for?”

“Well, in my dreams, I saw this hooded man use it to open a gate,” Avela explains. The gate is nowhere to be found in this chamber. She eyes the interface, “Hmm…what if I try this.”

Avela wears the necklace and returns to the interface. Hovering her hand over the hexagonal plates, she thinks of Osha, _no Mother_ , the gate— _those golden spires are beautiful,_ and the hooded man. _No, he is Jardaan._  

From the beam of light steps out the man from her dreams. He has no hood to shroud his features. Tails protrude from his head, secured by a band at his nape. His deep red eyes contrast his deep blue skin. The shape of his nose and lips are like Angara but not quite.

He is Jardaan. A Remnant creator and the creator of the Angara. Avela’s heart thrums with joy. A Jardaan, she has this opportunity to see a Jardaan. Questions race through her mind but before Avela asks the first, the Jardaan speaks.  

“If you are watching this, we are dead—killed by our own creation,” he says, his voice echoing across the chamber. “Neither my name nor my identity matters. I gave up both when I took my oath as a seer or the Seer as I am the last of my Order.

He pauses, looks extremely solemn and looks directly at Avela as if speaking through her from time. “And perhaps, I am the last of my people—the Jardaan.”

The Seer presses his hands together. Smoke fumes in between his palms, curling around his webbed fingers. He opens his hands. A shadow, an outline bearing the Seer’s features stands on his palm.

“We are a people of progress. Our society strives for the greater, the bigger until we were capable of bringing life.” Shadows of the Remnant fizzle into existence on his palm, spinning around his outline. “We started with the machines. Mechanical, synthetic but incapable of higher thought.”

He presses his palms together. When he lifts them up, more shadows of Jardaan appear on his palm, working in Vaults. “And so we toiled day and night, searching for the secret to life and when we found it—” He closes his hand into a fists. He opens it, and standing on his palm is a new shadow—angara.

“We created them, the angara,” he muses, fond of his own creation. “We entrusted them with the future of the jaraveon. Our chosen people but there are those who do not agree.”

With a wave of his hand, the shadows disappear. He presses his lips into a thin line. “They were gods, they proclaimed and they had the right to enslave the angara. We fought. For so many years—we fought. Until she unleashed the ultimate weapon to end the war once and for all—and our civilization as we knew it.”

“The Scourge.” Avela mutters.

“But she is not gone. Heed my words, she will come back,” the Seer says. “When the heart of our people wakes a world from an eternal slumber, she will rise from the depths of the oceans and her path of destruction begins anew.”

The transmission ends.

An instant, just an instant and another piece of her history flashes and fades into oblivion. In her time as a curator, Avela has encountered many of those: of fragments and pieces which never seem to fit; of blurred text upon stone tablets and incomprehensible data with a language they cannot translate. Every day she is a witness of her history crumbling before her eyes. She doesn’t mourn for the loss anymore when there’s too much missing from their history books.

She must get this data, if not for her fame and glory as Aya’s beloved curator then for her people—a complete piece of their history.

All of an sudden, Pol tackles her to the ground. She squirms, shoving him off her. He presses his full weight on her chest.

“Pol, if this revenge for the amulet,” she hisses.

“Ssh…listen.”

Bang. A bullet zips through the air, crashing at the structure behind them. Avela is scared.

“I’ll count to three and you run,” Pol says, low enough that only she would hear. “Doesn’t matter where. Just run away from here.”

“But—” Avela protests.

Bang. Another bullet. Avela tries her hardest to stay very still.

“One.”

“Pol.”

Bang.

“I can’t just leave you here.”

Bang.

“Two.”

Bang.

“Pol, please don’t do this.”

“Three.”

Bang—Pol rolls off her. Crouching behind the structure, he takes out his rifle and fires. Bullets fly through the room.He reloads.

“Avela, go. Now.” He commands. “I’ll be fine.”

She runs, as far as her legs can take her into the labyrinth. She catches a glimpse of their attacker—a figure cloaked in red.

 

If she dies now, Avela only has one regret in her life and that is, it’s too soon. She has hundreds of artifacts left to uncover, and thousands more of mysteries to solve. With her, she carries the answers her people needs—an answer to their origin.

She can’t die. Not yet.

Avela closes her eyes and waits.

But the killer never comes. She peaks through the door. He is gone. Relief washes over her like a fountain. She exits the room and follows the path into the chamber.

“Pol,” she calls, “Pol, he’s not here anymore. I’m heading back to the chamber.”

No response. She calls again, “Pol?”

Never mind, she thinks. She’ll find Pol later, if there’s still a Pollux Peysik to find. For now, she has a history to save.

Avela arrives at the chamber. She catches a glimpse of red cloth—their attacker. She scrambles behind a pillar, hoping he’ll never find her. She peeks. The hooded man faces the interface. He opens his Omni tool. The interface is different from the standard Omni tool the Initiative uses; a red overlay outlines the tool. He hovers his hand on the interface.

The Seer steps out of the light. He speaks.

“If you are watching this, we are dead--killed by our own--” the Seer stops. “Oh, it's you again.”

Again? And the Seer greets him as though he is an old friend. Avela’s blood runs cold. Her gut tells her something more dangerous is at play.

The hooded man says nothing.

“How many cycles has it been?” The Seer asks.

“You know I've lost count.”

“177. I remember,” the Seer replies. The hooded man doesn’t react. “When will you stop?”

“Until I've created the perfect timeline,” he says harshly.

“A bold answer.”

“You ask me the same question every time.”

“And you give me the same answer each time. So, I wonder how many cycles does it take to break you? Unless you have.” The Seer steps away from the beam of light, and paces around him. “With each new cycle, you lose a piece of yourself--a piece of your humanity.”

“It’s the price I have to pay to save them,” the hooded man snarls.

The Seer stops pacing. “Do you even remember who they are?”

He doesn’t answer. Avela’s gut tells her to go and leave. She is an intruder in their conversation but her inner historian tells her to stay. The data is right at her fingertips. She only needs to wait.

And so she stays.

“They’re calling me something else this time,” the hooded man says.

“Oh, and what is that?”

“The Benefactor.”

“Fitting,” the Seer says, “you work in the sidelines, manipulating the chain of events to create the perfect path. You are their benefactor, their saviour.”

“They don’t mean it that way.”

The Benefactor places his hand on the Seer. Tendrils creep from his fingers, wrapping around the Seer like wild vines. The Seer doesn’t protest or even flinch. Soon, only his eyes are visible.

“Goodbye, he’ll see you again soon.” The Benefactor removes his hand. The Seer disintegrates into dust. With him, the light dissipates and the chamber is blanketed in complete darkness.

“No!” Avela shrieks, echoing throughout the chamber. An instant is all it takes to destroy their history.

The Benefactor turns around. He sees her. Skkut, Avela covers her mouth. Silent tears run down her cheeks. Every the Benefactor takes, Avela’s heart thumps louder. She doesn’t want to die. She doesn’t want to die.

And then silence. She peeks through the pillar. The Benefactor is gone. Avela relaxes, slumping down on the floor. She has evaded death’s grasp once more. Oh, the stories she will tell after this expedition.

A flash. The Benefactor appears, standing as still as the Remnant machines. Avela quivers. He raises his Omni tool. Before death takes her, she thinks of their history before the Scourge—a missing fragment on their tapestry of time. She came so close to uncovering it all.

The amulet is warm against her chest. Osha fought back. Death stood before her eyes, and Osha chose to fight instead of running. Avela reaches for her pistol. She has a clumsy grip on the trigger but she doesn’t care. Her ancestor fought to protect their civilization. She will too.

Avela fires two shots.

A flash, and the next time she blinks, she sees the mountain ranges forming Kadara’s landscape. Govorkam sets behind the mountains, closing the day once more. Avela inhales the fresh, clean air. She’s alive. She’s _alive_.

“Hey Avela,” a voice croaks. Avela spins around-- _Pol_. He rests against a rock, clutching the side of his side where blood seeps from his carapace.

“Pol, you’re bleeding.” She rips a packet of medi gel, squeezing the contents on her hand. Avela applies it on Pol’s wound but he stops her.

“I've applied two packets on the wound," he drawls, "anymore and I'll be seeing stars. I called Christmas Tate when I was transported here, he should be coming with Dr. Nakamoto."

Avela sits beside him. "How did you get here?"

"How did _you_?"

Avela has no answer. One moment, she was at the chamber, fighting for her life against the Benefactor and the next, she was outside the Vault. "Maybe, the Benefactor saved me."

"The who?"

"I think he was the one who attacked us," Avela says. 

"I don't know. He doesn't seem like the type," Pol counters. He adjusts the gauze on his wound. "Considering what he did."

Avela shrugs. She says nothing.

Christmas Tate arrives soon after. Dr. Nakamoto straps Pol on a medical bed and takes him on an emergency shuttle. Avela leaves with Mayor Tate. Sitting at the back of the shuttle, Avela traces the indents of her amulet. There are things she still wants to know. Who is the woman the Seer speaks of and what is this world sleeping an eternal slumber? Who is the Benefactor and why does he know the Seer? What are the cycles they speak of?

But they are mysteries for another time.


End file.
